Rice is one of the most important crops in the world. Photosynthesis, which uses energy from sunlight to produce glucose from carbon dioxide and water, is a key factor in biomass synthesis during rice growth. Identification of genes with the function of high photosynthetic efficiency has an important application prospect.
CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)/Cas9 technology is a significant improvement of genome editing tools for gene functional analysis. A single guide RNA (sgRNA) is generated to direct Cas9 nuclease to a specific genomic location, and Cas9-induced double strand breaks are repaired. The repair is error prone and thus insertions/deletions may be introduced that can disrupt gene function by frame-shift mutation. Therefore, CRISPR/Cas9 can efficiently be used for knockout of target gene, and has been widely used in researches of gene function and application of molecular breeding.